Walmart Buys Oakland Park Kmart

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. has paid $11 million for an aging Kmart store in Oakland Park, but the world’s largest retailer isn’t expected to immediately occupy the site. The sale closed last month.
Spokesman Steven V. Restivo says Walmart is exploring its options for the property at 670 E. Oakland Park Blvd. Kmart still has three years left on a lease there.
Included in the sale was an adjacent parcel on which Holsum Bakery operates a store. The bakery is on a month-to-month lease, said Douglas Mandel, a vice president for the Marcus & Millichap brokerage that represented the sellers, Carrie Lee Ball Trust and Adkins Holdings LTD.
The 13-acre site drew considerable interest from buyers looking to redevelop it, but Walmart submitted the strongest bid, Mandel said. “They came in very aggressively,” he said.
The 110,989-square-foot store was built in 1962.
Walmart wanted the land because it doesn’t have a strong presence east of Interstate 95 in Broward County, said Russ Bornstein, an executive vice president with CB Richard Ellis in Boca Raton. Walmart is willing to wait for Kmart’s lease to expire because this was a rare opportunity to buy a large parcel in Broward, he said. “When it’s a tight market and there are very few options available, you do what you have to do,” said Bornstein, a retail broker who was not involved in this sale.
Source:  Sun-Sentinel